biggest pile of shite you have ever looked at?

[Bren]

What is the biggest pile of shite you have ever wasted your time looking at? Have you ever wanted to give the vendor a good shooing?

 

A mate rang me the other night saying he was going to look at a car in Widnes. When he told me where I laughed to myself as it was not far from the largest automotive pile of turd I have ever looked at.

 

I was looking for a diesel Xantia and saw one in the trader, hatchback, XUD, 60K on the clock and looked nice in metallic red.Asking £1200 which was 'nt cheap really.

 

In the flesh it was a different story. Paint missing on the leading edges of all the doors, bolster on drivers seat ripped, (it screamed ex taxi - no way had it done 60K). No service history save for a current MOT. And to top it all it would'nt start.

 

I was told it was a flat battery - by now I wasn't the slightest bit bothered as I would'nt have touched it with yours. The vendor invited me back but I declined, I told him I would waste my time somewhere else.

 

I saw one on Ebay (shagging ebay again), however this went for way over book because it had lowish mileage and a sheaf of history. Eventually I landed an even better one from just outside Blackpool,Estate, P reg, less than 100k with £4k worth of bills, immaculate inside and out.Mine for £1050.

 

So come on, when have wasted your time (and money)?

[Timewaster]

I once went to look at a Sapphire Cosworth at a "sports specialist" dealer in Suffolk (I don't think they exist anymore). £4995 wasn't particularly cheap at the time but it had a nice shiney fresh respray.

 

Unfortunately prior to spraying, the buckets and buckets of Wob in the rear wings had been carefully rubbed down with a brick. That looked lovely under the showroom lights. Under the bonnet, the wiring was an assortment of scotchlocks and peeling black tape. Drivers seat side bolsters were non existant.

As they say in the Sun, we made our excuses and left.

[Felly Magic]

Not me, but swmbo's dad bought swmbo a Clio that was P reg'd, clearly it had been in a shunt at some point, had badly kerbed 16 inch alloys, heavily mastic'd sunroof from a fleapit near Colchester. It was a death trap. When I first drove it, it actually scared me, as it had severe play in the steering, and crabbed down the road. The electrics started dying, and it was a money pit. 3 punctures, tyres at £80 a corner...The last straw was when the intermittent wipers went south. It was dumped in part ex and the garage grudgingly gave us £150 for it, and he said the steering was fucked. It cost swmbo's dad £650 notes! Clearly the MOT on it was benter than Julian Clary!

[Cavcraft]

Some of the threads/or posts on here recently.

[warren t claim]

Some of the threads/or posts on here recently.

Oops

[phil drolls]

I went with a mate to look at what was advertised as a genuine Renault 5 Gordini. We drove from Southampton to Watford to find what the seller said was a great runner was in fact a non-starter, with no battery or leads, missing steering wheel and was mingin' with filler. Turned out the bloke who was definitely a scrap dealer judging by the state of his house and garden, had forgotten that he'd let his son borrow a few bits off it! Complete waster.

[phil_lihp]

Probably an X plate Ford Focus I looked at a few years ago. It looked nice, but on the test drive there was a distinct lack of power for a 1.8 zetec. I don't know the official figures, but I'm pretty sure they should be able to do more than 50mph flat out.

 

Unsurprisingly, it then tried to kill me on a busy roundabout by faltering to a halt as I pulled out, proceeding to repeat the same procedure at every junction on the way back. I stopped in a car park to see if there was anything obviously wrong, which there was not, and got back in, at which point it occurred to me that the interior looked a hell of a lot more worn than it should have done for the miles it had supposedly done.

 

The dealer was waiting for me on my return and greeted me with a big smile and a "drives alright, dun't it!". I'm normally polite, but in this case I got out, threw the keys to him with the briefest of explanations and walked off, leaving them poking around the engine bay scratching their heads. I saw it on the road a few weeks later with its lucky new owner

[RedSparrow]

Some of the threads/or posts on here recently.

 

Bugger! you got there before me!

[warren t claim]

I regularly buy my vehicles at CAVCRAFT so I never need look at a pile of shit.

[mk2_craig]

A c plate fiesta of indeterminate trim level that had an xr2 body kit crudely screwed on and a 1300 Valencia lump which wasn't original equipment on a car of that age. It was only 175 quid and twelve yrs old at the time but reeked of bodgery and when I saw the downpipe held onto the manifold with coach bolts I walked.

[stuboy]

bought a pug 309 auto 1.6, took 2 hours to drive 1.5 miles home brokedown 14 times.... managed to get back the next day and get refund and get my escort mk4 1.6 ghia that was rusting away but was way better than the french carp

[Spiny Norman]

Quite a few over the years, but the one that sticks in my mind was the lovely shiney red Capri I went to look at with a mate years ago when Capris were just another old shitty Ford.

A classic 'five yarder' which just got worse and worse the closer you looked. The driver's door just about dropped off in my hand due to the rust in the pillar, the interior was destroyed, the engine sounded like a long train running over a complicated set of points and there was freshly painted Isopon everywhere, even the roof.

My mate was so smitten with the whole 'Capri-ness' of it, he still wanted to buy the thing...

[dieselnutjob]

Talbot Horizon diesel that was utterly rotten.

[Baz]

Once drove all the way from Sudbury, Suffolk, to Birmingham, in my 1959 Simca Aronde (Which wasn't really comfortable at anything above 55mph) to look at an Alfasud Sprint that had been described by a "Classic Car Specialist" as immaculate....Pulled up on his forecourt, and didn't even have to get out of the car to see that the Alfa was a pile of shit!

 

The chap had been expecting me, but I didn't even do him the courtesy of getting out and announcing my arrival, I just turned around, and headed home....I fear I may have chinned the bloke for assuming that I was an idiot, and lying to me! Thank god for the internet nowadays....If it looks crap in the pictures, it will DEFINITELY be crap in the metal!

[Ben_L]

A 1999 S-Reg'd Polo GLX 1.4...

 

Looked the pieces, £350 with T&T... Took it for a test run but the trader wouldn't come with me. Going around a roundabout, the steering wheel span but it felt like the wheels were doing nothing, then it felt like it was on the crab all the way back.

 

Told him, politely, that I wouldn't be buying it and made my excuses. Same car was seen a fortnight later in a breakers yard. Glad I kept my £350! Was worth around £100-150 tops.

[flat4alfa]

What is the biggest pile of shite you have ever wasted your time looking at?

I went NEC Classic show and looked at Mike Brewer

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I regularly buy my vehicles at CAVCRAFT so I never need look at a pile of shit.

 

Buying online avoids the need.

 

 

I once drove from Oxford to Warwick to view an Alfasud that 'drove well'. It was in a field with no wheels, front wings, battery, fuel, keys...............

 

Going back to 1996 ish, I spend an amusing day with a mate and his dorter lookiung at sub 500 quid cars. The most overdescribed was a tidy mark 3 Escort with a reconditioned engine. It was absolutely fucked with rust, and the oil soaked smoking CVH ran on three pots. Unreal.

[Cavcraft]

Warren buying my Laguna in the dark certainly helped me!

[Morgan84]

Saw a Daimler V8 250 advertised on FleaBay as a project vehicle,described as last running 2 years ago.Phoned the guy up,who said he had a disabled wife,and hadn't the time to finish the car,so would part with it at a great loss just to get the space blah de blah. Had a local farmer friend take us with his car trailer behind a double cab Navara from Norwich down to Camberley.

It was on a ropey housing estate,and the car was litlerally in floorless condition,with the back bumper hanging off,and the drivers door almost dropping off ! In fairness,he did say it might be a bit of a journey to drive it back.We laughed our heads off so much when we got in the truck,that it took us 5 minutes to compose ourselves,before heading back home again.

Our friend laughed so much,he didn't charge a penny for his days work,and was happy with the £50 diesel we paid for before we set off,and he had a bit more than we started with by the time we got back.Absolute pile of crap,in Onslowville,but a bloody good laugh !

[Pete-M]

Tatra 805. High in the mountains of Bohemia the vendor was a farmer who didn't seem too interested in selling his old ex-Czech Military Tatra to some English bloke who couldn't speak the lingo. I had a Czech friend with me who was my translator. It took a long time to persuade him I was serious about buying it, and that it would be looked after and it's mechanical issues put right, until after a couple of Slivovice he agrees to let me see the 805. As I'm approaching the Tatra my mate Fred phones me out of the blue. Fred is German, so as you'd expect of me the ringtone for Fred on my phone is a certain one-balled Austrian chap making a speech in the late 1930s. In Nuremberg. My Czech translator pisses himself laughing, I answer the phone to Fred and the farmer goes a bit ranty. Never did get to see it.

[Junkman]

Unfortunately the subj. of this thread brings up some quite negative connotations.

 

Please let me start with an actually quite positive experience, all things considered.

 

There were 429 convertibles built of the 1961 Imperial. That's it. Period.

The way they fashioned them in the old Highland Park factory was, that they took 2dr Southamptons (Chrysler Corp lingo for Imperial hardtops), cut the roofs off, and installed all the convertible related gear, including some interior parts unique to the convertibles.

I had two '61 Imperial 2dr Crown Southamptons (889 built), one of them a pristine 13000mi original in a special 'Spring Color' - Malibu Tan, a sort of Flamingo colour. The other one was quite average condition. So I reasoned, that I could take the latter car and do, what Chrysler themselves did back in 1961. Hence I went hunting for a 61 donor convertible.

I ultimately found it in Wyoming. And trust me, this was the worst car I ever saw in my life. Carefully stored in a fookin field for 25 years, the car was so rotten, that it had collapsed in half. If you look at a 61 Imperial frame, this is no mean feat. The bottom foot of the car had turned into brown crumbles, or became one with nature. I'm not talking monocoque, which is synonymous for tin foil. I'm talking about a frame with girders the gauge of Sydney Harbour Bridge.

But irrespectively of how bad this car was, it yielded all the bits I needed to recrate a 61 Imperial Crown convertible. The result is now in Sweden and it is a consistent show winner.

 

Now for the drearier droll story of my life.

 

It may have not escaped the more awake among you, that I fancy an Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire 346. Especially in its four light configuration, which is much rarer than the six light.

One came up for sale some five years back, in Southend, of all places. I mean, nobody ever passes Southend on the occasional trip. To Southend, you have to drive all the way out, and you have to turn around there and drive back the same way you got there, until you reach civilisation again.

The way the car was advertised sounded promising. And the way the seller sounded on the phone, I deemed it worth my while to take the trip, all the way from here, oop narf.

 

Upon arrival, it turned out, that the car was part of the most half arsed wedding car fleet I ever had the privilege to look at. The Armstrong was the worst of the bunch. Beige-washed over visible patches of Mastic, inside it sported printed Oriental pattern Carpetland rugs to cover its crumbling floorboards. The seats looked like these bean filled cushions we had in the Seventies and all woodwork was rotten to splinters. The car gave the impression that it was submerged in the Thames Estuary for most of its life, then dragged ashore and botched together with half a ton of putty covered with beige enamel. Kudos to 1950s English engineering, the inline Hemi six fired on most of its cylinders. The owner of the heap then took me on a test ride, and I couldn't believe that he completely blanked out the fact, that the thing sounded and felt like a Commer Knocker going down the road.

To this day, I have not decided what I find more disturbing - an MOT Test station that deemd this pile roadworthy enough to carry paying passengers, or the owner lcompletely blanking out the fact, that his rot box was so bad, I wouldn't scrap it. The term 'banger racing' crossed my mind repeatedly.

I told him to get off the mushrooms and visit his local Spec Saver branch. Reality, a terrible thing occurring when the drugs wear off. Then I left.

[michael1703]

Probably ended up buying most of the shite I looked at

 

worst purchase recently was a minor traveller last year, blind bid on ebay won it at £120,went to pick it up Saturday morning it was absolutely fucked, smoked the clutch on my range rover dragging it out, had to chisel the brake drums off to get it free enough to move, the doors wouldn't shut as the "A" posts were rotten, the rear axle departed as i dragged it out and had to be held fast with a ratchet strap, the wood was rotten and the rear doors hanging off.

 

I thoroughly strapped everything on/down/tight and drove it back to the workshop, gave it a thorough check and pronounced it dead, both chassis rails were dust,engine seized, the list goes on.

 

Left it on the trailer to scrap it Monday morning, took the scenic route to stay off main roads and noticed something in my rear mirror that wasn't there before, it was both rear doors which had come off as a pair and were sitting on the o/s of the trailer, fastened them down, carried on, hit a bump and the side windows bounced out and smashed onto the road, kicked the fragments into the verge and got to the scrapyard, scrapped it and broke even, less my time and a slipping clutch

 

What a fuck up

[fordperv]

went to look at a 53 plate focus ink edition that was advertised on ebay, looked great on the pictures got there looked as if had been washed with a brillo pad there was a huge scrape on the rear quarter panel which had been photoshopped out, to top it all off the fecker wouldnt start i walked away very quickly

[Cavcraft]

Loads.

One that sticks out was a 7 year old Fiesta on eBay in Manchester. I can't remember the exact description but it was out of MOT, needed 'minor' work and had a scuffed bumper. Couple of questions asked, 'doesn't need much work mate' was the answer. Won it for something like £210, fired up the recovery truck and shot on up there.

When I arrived and dragged it out of the hedge it was almost parked in I observed the HUGE dent on the n/s/r quarter, just after I noticed the engine rattling it's bollocks off.

Slightly* incensed I told him to shove it up his arse, I didn't want it.

He then said it had to go and asked what I would offer. Smelling blood I offered £30 and he accepted. I made a nice few quid out of it in the end, but that wasn't the point and it was fucked and I could have made more.

[MK5 Escort]

I can think of two experiences from a long time ago which have always stuck in my memory:

 

One that immediately springs to mind was a 'C' reg Suzuki SJ410 in metallic blue at a local back street garage (a former petrol station) described as being in 'decent condition for it's age'. We went round and from a distance it was okay-ish. Closer up it was clear that the lacquer was peeling in various places and the offside corner of the rear bumper was damaged so a lot of water had got into the light cluster (which was also split). Not too deterred being cheap, we jumped inside ready for a test drive. The interior was tatty at best and we presume was previously owned by Edward Scissorhands who must have carried some pet pigs with him in the car... On starting it become apparent the engine wouldn't even tick over without keeping your foot on the throttle and no matter how hard we tried, first gear just wasn't selectable. Only 58k on the clock? I don't think so. Oh no. 58k off road maybe...? How it had passed it's last couple of MOT’s (if they weren't forged), I'll never know. So, it was a case of chucking the keys back and walking away without even moving it off the forecourt. It was still sitting there for sale six months later...

 

Another one around the same time was the caramel coloured 'X' red Citroen Visa with one owner from new, proudly advertised as having back seats that had 'never been used'. Off we go up to the Wirral one summer late evening and to be fair it was spotlessly clean inside and out. Certainly no false advertisement on that front. However, the middle-aged chap selling it was very shifty and everything went rapidly downhill from there. He met us in his Capri at a block of garages that he claimed he lived just behind. I knew then something wasn't right. Upon the test drive (as it wasn't for me I sat in the back - the seat has now been 'used'!) he insisted the indicators to be turned off after 'ten clicks'. His reasoning behind this was that the car "hasn't run for a bit / stuck in the garage for 'x' months..." and it would "flatten the battery at the moment" . It also kept on stalling. It just didn't feel right. On returning, he hesitated when we asked to go into 'his house' to see the paperwork/history he claimed to have had and then told us he wanted an answer there and then as to whether we wanted it or not. Hmmm... This isn't how you do things... We walked away rather quickly from 'his' Visa and glad we did to be honest.

[gtd2000]

Pretty much anything West of Edinburgh to be honest.

 

A Notable example includes a "mint" condition 1983 Honda Civic for sale somewhere near Lanark in the early 90's.

 

I turned up to find a Honda Civic that was essentially scrap, not a single panel was good and the interior looked like it had been used for growing potatoes...the seller was certainly left with my full impression of the car

[Joseph]

I could say, the last time I walked past a Nissan dealer and saw a Juke in the window...

 

A friend once saw an ad for a Mk4 Fiesta in Larkhall. He decided to go up to view the car with his girlfriend, and an apparently 'good condition' Fiesta turned out to be anything but. When arriving at the house, he was informed by the rather nervous tenant that the 'motor was round the back', and, throwing the keys to my friend, said that he could take it for a test drive if he wanted.

 

Friend goes round to the back garden of the house to find a rather grotty-looking Fiesta sitting up on axle stands, minus all four wheels. Apparently, he didn't bother test driving that one, and made a quick exit, having posted the keys back through the letterbox of the house...

[gtd2000]

Didn't the seller describe the Fiesta as "mint" seems to be the favourite word on the West side of Scotland for anything that's for sale?

 

I looked at an AE82 over that way in 1994 which was yet again described as "mint conditon" and came with a brand new Toyota dealer fitted engine.

 

What was for sale was a very messed around with Corolla GT - every philips screwhead was burred and the "new engine" had blue liquid gasket sealer around the rocker cover.

 

Apparently the "new engine" was actually fitted 80,000 miles previously.........what a fucking pile o' shite!

[Justin Case]

A few years back I saw not one but two Saab 96 two-strokes advertised in the Autotrader as restoration projects for the grand sum of £250. They were in Worcestershire, not far from where I was working, so I went out with a mate one lunch-time to look at them. They were standing in an orchard and the one didn't look too bad from outside, but on opening the passenger door, the first bit of metal you could see was the drive-shaft, otherwise nothing but grass where the floor, inner wing and lower part of the bulk-head had been And that was the better of the pair No apt comments at the time I'm afraid as we left before we had regained the power of speech

[Guest]

I went from Kent to Kings Lynn on thr train to buy a Escort van. Said I wanted to take it there and then if ok.

Ebay desc sounded ok. Had spoken to chap. Good good.

He picked me up from the station.

Pulled into yard.

My fuckin life.

This things was as if a dog has eaten the interior. Bald front tyres where arms were collapsed. Cracked screen.

'This is not what you're tryign to sell me and I've travelled three hours and across London for?@

I'm normally level headed but that went straight out the window.

Ended up being swiftly driven back to the station with money for my wasted train fare in hand

 

Then ebay wally No2 has another van. Looks ok. Sills have long shuffled off this mortal coil. Joined the heavenly choir etc.

Just been MOTd. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Now this was 2007....so prices for E30s were quite up and OMG driftkaod prevailed, he offers a straight swap for my FSH, 1 prev owner, 85k E30 325i with rare guff like map reading light in mirror. YEah right.

 

Phones me week later and says I can have the van for £250. Sweet.

 

Then, as an aside, there was the man who bought the E30 for his son. He'd had a 318 that he'd just punted into a hedge......backerds. So I he askes for a test drive. Ha ha 20 years old, just written of the last car and you want a test drive? Not unless there is the full asking PLUS £500 in my hand to pay for recovery, lamp post and God knows what.

His la de dah father phones me up. I explain to him, it has an LSD, a what?? Hmmmm if you fuck up and panic with your foot on the loud pedal put simply it will carry on. Regardless. Until it hits an immobile object.

It was a flighty bastard alright

Clearly he's Charly big bananas in the city so doesn;t take no for an answer.

I say he can test it. no problem. Monkey boy - No. He can promise what he wants if the worst shoudl happen but No.No No.

Cue rant about too busy to indulge my wishes blah blah.

"Ok mate. Fuck off then".

 

Next day he phones me.

Full of apologies. Says he will pay full amount. Can he courier the cash to me and can I deliver for a small consideration???!??

WTF.

Yep no problem.Done.

 

3 weeks later. Sat at work, phone on silent as in a meeting.

Excuse my colleagues as phone going mad.

It's in a tree off the main road, been crashed the night before. Got sent pics and it is fucked.

Here endeth the lesson and the moral being your Dad can have all the money in the world but you'll still be a bellend who can't drive.